Sunday, October 31, 2010

Why do people pass along unsubstantiated "exclusives" by anonymous bloggers?

Patrick McIlheran engaged in a little triangulated monkey-wrenching the other day, re-posting an anonymous blog item from The Milwaukee Drum site preposterously claiming that regardless of Mayor Barrett's showing in Tuesday's gubernatorial campaign, Common Council President was going to announce that same day he was running for Mayor in 2012.

McIlheran was having a little political 'fun' with Hines (let's make Hines the biggest, most insensitive opportunist ever) and at Barrett's expense, also, should Barrett lose (let's kick the guy when he's really down) to Scott Walker, McIlheran's candidate.

Enter Eugene Kane, who engaged in a little basic journalism, called Hines, was told by Hines there were no such plans - - d'uh, or is it d'oh? - - so Kane wrote up the facts and put his byline on a story.

Hines to run for mayor?

Yep, says The Milwaukee Drum: The common council president will make the announcement, the Drum’s sources say, on election day, “regardless of the gubernatorial” result.

Interesting, if true. Hines isn’t perfect, but he’s got a lot of good things to say. And that “regardless” clause: No, people don’t love a loser -- especially, it seems, one who beat Marvin Pratt to win the mayor’s office.

I know all about the declining influence of newspapers, and I know Russ Feingold lives in a Madison suburb, but that conservative businessman Ron Johnson couldn't grab the Wisconsin State Journal endorsement that should have come gift-wrapped tells me that GOP ticket-spliiters are going to out Feingold over the top tomorrow.

I wouldn't have said that two or three weeks ago, but I sense that Johnson's strategy of withholding specifics - - even from newspaper editorial writers - - has cost him more than endorsements at papers like the Green Bay Press-Gazette and hios home town daily, the Oshkosh Northwestern.

It's solidified an impression - - a fair one and self-induced - - that he is too uninformed and devious to be a US Senator.

Feingold, by contrast, has been available in public forums for years and years, and is unafraid to defend his positions - - including controversial stands on The Patriot Act, the wars and the health care bill.

People this year are saying they want independent politicians. And they are realizing that's exactly what they have in Feingold.

My old friend Bill Kaplan had this commentary posted on Wis.Opinion.com recently, and the unfolding banker-induced foreclosure scandal makes the need for Feingold-style bank regulations all the more prescient:

10/13/2010

Why Senator Feingold?

By Bill Kaplan

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com .

The banking – Wall Street – housing bubble was collective irrational madness. Financial institutions peddled unsound home loans, packaged as bonds. These investments were sold as creditworthy, profitable and safe. But bankers and brokers knew otherwise, and bought credit default swaps (insurance) to protect themselves when the bonds went bad. Predictably the façade collapsed. The housing bubble with ever skyrocketing prices burst in 2007 under President Bush with catastrophic consequences.

Deindustrialization and U.S. factory jobs going abroad got much worse, with over two million manufacturing jobs nationally and 63,000 in Wisconsin lost. Income inequality looks like the 1920s. And, many with little savings face record levels of educational, housing and medical debt. Voters are anxious, fearful and angry. But should madness beget more madness?

Voters tell pollsters they want independent politicians not under the thumb of special interests, who will watch out for regular folks, work with their political opposites and even defy their own party. Then Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold is your man. He is the quintessential maverick and populist, rooted in Wisconsin history and tradition.

Senator Feingold has always fought for the common good, no matter who is president or which political party controls Congress.

Deregulation that began under President Clinton helped produce the 2007 financial implosion. The Clinton administration supported the GOP-led repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had successfully regulated financial institutions by separating commercial Main Street banks from investment Wall Street banks, so federally insured banks would not be involved with risky speculation. (In the 1920s National City Bank – now Citigroup – then the largest U.S. bank, repackaged bad loans from Latin America and sold them as safe investments

Such schemes led to a stock bubble and the 1929 crash.) Senator Feingold was one of eight senators who voted against repeal in 1999. So big got bigger and harder to regulate Then in 2008 under President Bush, Citigroup was bailed out by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the Federal Reserve when its mortgage-backed securities went bad. There’s more.

* Senator Feingold voted against the Bush-sponsored TARP. He called for the Bush administration and Congress to “offset the cost of the proposed bailout so that taxpayers don’t get saddled with it….including asking Wall Street to bear at least some of the cost….add meaningful provisions to help families facing foreclosure….and address the deeply flawed regulatory structure that paved the way for this crisis.” Bush, a deregulator, did not listen.

President Obama was willing to regulate financial institutions. And, there is much that is good in the financial reform bill that passed. But Feingold fought to make it stronger by supporting a bipartisan amendment to “restore the Glass-Steagall firewall between Wall Street and Main Street” and other amendments to impose “strict limits on the size of financial institutions” and to end some of the worst abuses of credit-default swaps. His amendments lost and so the final bill failed “Feingold’s test for real reform.” He voted no, but fights on.

-- Kaplan wrote a guest column from Washington, D.C. for the Wisconsin State Journal 1995-2009.

Tom Barrett, as he did in the earlier debates, offered voters facts and plans and compassion, while Scott Walker had nothing to offer except word salad, talking points, Boy Scout memories and more promises of tax cuts for business - - without any way to pay for them.

Some highlights:

Twice, Barrett asked Walker to name a single job he'd created in the central city of Milwaukee, and twice Walker had no response.

Twice Barrett reminded viewers that Walker had raided county sales tax collections to pay for routine operating expenses, rather than using them for capital projects as required by county ordinance.

Twice Barrett nailed Walker for borrowing $400 million to make required contributions to keep the county pension fund solvent - - rather than making the tougher budget decisions and funding pensions with budgeted revenue, as does the City of Milwaukee.

And Barrett came out strongly for stem cell research - - as a moral, medical and jobs' imperative - - to which Walker offered no rejoinder.

And there was one almost-moment - - a punch line left unverbalized, so I'll do the honors:

In response to an audience question about the job market for graduates up north, Walker said he had recently been at UW-La Crosse, and upon learning that few graduates had job offers in hand, though it would help would help to out-of-state businesses two years income tax forgiveness if they moved business to Wisconsin.

I thought Walker was going to suggest that those UW-La Cross seniors should drop out before graduating - - as he did from Marquette - - but neither candidate made the connection.

You might want to read the thoughtful and documented posting on the Public Policy Forum's website to get some actual factual information before you run off and drink the Kool-aid about toll roads being served up by special interests and Scott Walker - - formerly an opponent of toll roads but a major recipient of road-builder largesse during his run for Governor.

Seems the Feds require you prove worsening congestion on the roads to be tolled, and data - - not anecdotal events or gut feelings or campaign spin - - indicate the Milwaukee metro area - - the state's most-heavily-populated region - - wouldn't meet that threshold, according to the "Texas Transportation Institute's (TTI) latestUrban Mobility Report," says the Forum."According to that report (as discussed in this July 2009blog post), congestion in Metro Milwaukee has not grown since the 1990s. Examination of the report also reveals that each of the large urban areas that has implemented HOT lanes - Orange County (CA), San Diego, Houston, Denver and Minneapolis - ranks among the top 25 in terms of highway traveler delays, while Milwaukee ranks 67th."An updated TTI report on traffic congestion levels is scheduled to be released in the near future. It will be interesting to see whether the new report provides additional clues regarding the efficacy of HOT lanes in Milwaukee."

And this editorial in the Journal Sentinel doesn't cut it, either - - and I note that the editorial praises tolling as a way to support transit, while the paper's reporting on Walker's conversion to toll lanes - - beginning here - - provides nothing to suggest that Walker sees toll collections as anything but a revenue stream to boost the highway fund and give motorists new new lanes.

That's been the context for the sudden discussion - - getting more revenue for road-building as gas tax collections fall and some highway money was spent elsewhere.

The Forum's posting is a solid effort to get some rationality into an important policy discussion that, right now, has been distorted by politics.

And to think that it's being wasted on biking and walking trails when Interstate improvements like the Interchange to Nowhere at the non-existent Pabst Farms shopping mall, or perhaps Scott Walker's Not-A-Toll-Road-Toll-Road-Lanes are just begging for dollars.

* Spinning from revelations reported by the Journal Sentinel that you didn't put in a place during an eight years+ tenure as county Exec a system to inspect county buildings (this year pieces have fallen off the Courthouse, an airport terminal ceiling onto a passenger, and, with a fatality, onto a teenager at O'Donnell Park).

Many buildings have not been inspected since the 1990's, and money needed for repairs totals nearly $200 million - - along with about the same amount needed for the parks' system, too.

* Watching your running mate Rebecca Kleefisch completely implode over screwy anti-gay remarks (gay marriage leads to marriages with tables, clocks and dogs) - - only to have Kleefisch's openly-gay uncle say that her belated apology was not extended to him, according to Dan Bice, investigative columnist at the state's largest daily paper.

* Having your campaign team bar Kleefisch from an interview with Bice.

If this is how Walker behaved as a student leader, governed in Milwaukee, and manages a campaign, is there any reason to think he'd make a competent Governor?

If the government keeps helping to create private sector jobs - - just the other day, 515 Doyle/Obama administration/government-assisted jobs at Bucyrus were announced - - Republicans like Walker and Johnson are going to have to find something real to complain about.

Rebecca Kleefisch, GOP candidate for Wisconsin Lt. Governor and running mate to gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, says she's sorry for suggesting that gay marriage would lead to unions with pets, clocks and tables.

A number of people commenting on my Daily Kos item about Kleefisch's curious thinking confessed their own furniture crushes, so let's give the Walker/Kleefisch team credit for helping folks work through issues they had taken off the table and swept under the rug.

Wisconsin Lakes recently invited the four candidates for governor of Wisconsin to respond to five questions regarding lake policy in the state. In these difficult economic times our lawmakers’ approach to protecting our lakes is more important than ever. In addition to being a resource worthy of protection in its own right, lakes make up a large component of Wisconsin's economy and tourism base, and their conservation, protection and restoration is often in direct competition with other economic sectors. With that in mind, we felt it important to give each a candidate a chance to express their views in a non-partisan environment, speaking directly to the folks most interested and invested in the issue.

Each campaign was provided a set of the questions in early October and given a deadline of Oct 20 to reply. The four campaigns and their respective party include:

Lakes in Wisconsin contribute significantly to state revenue through tax, tourist and recreation dollars. Many of the problems facing lakes are related to issues like groundwater, polluted runoff, aquatic invasive species, shoreland zoning and other concerns much larger than individual lakes. What initiatives will you advance to address the growing threat to lakes? What new or improved dedicated revenue streams will you suggest for the continued conservation, enhancement and restoration of our lakes, thereby protecting and increasing the tax, tourist and recreation dollars generated by Wisconsin lakes?

Barrett:

When times are tough, the tough work smarter. Given the current $2.7 billion structural deficit confronting our state, I believe we must work to use the tools we have to protect our lakes. To that end, I will work as Governor to use remote sensing and other modern technology to increase lake monitoring for water quality and invasive species without increasing cost to taxpayers. I will work to maintain programs like Water Guard (special wardens for invasive species education, monitoring and enforcement) and lake grants so that we can leverage state investments with hard work and creative problem solving of lake groups and local governments.

Our lakes, streams, and rivers are more noticeable resources than groundwater, perhaps due to groundwater’s out-of-sight-out-of-mind status. But the quantity and quality of surface waters and groundwater are inextricably linked. Reduced water in underground aquifers is becoming a noticeable problem, which is significantly impacting surface waters, as well as available drinking water. If elected, what would be your position on the management of Wisconsin's groundwater resources? What initiatives would you suggest to improve the protection of groundwater?

Barrett:

As Governor, I will support the implementation of the Great Lakes Compact including inventory of statewide water use and smart community water supply planning and water conservation. I will also work on programs similar to Focus on Energy to explore water conservation programs. And I will encourage the legislature to finish work on the initiative begun by Mark Miller and Spencer Black to tackle some of our toughest groundwater problems (groundwater management plans for karst and central sands).

Potential polluted runoff, particularly phosphorus runoff, remains a major challenge in achieving pollution regulation for the waters of our state. Administrative rules aimed at protecting Wisconsin’s waters from phosphorus passed the Natural Resources Board on June 23, 2010 and the Legislature in September. There are still many unknowns with this package of rules, including questions about how adaptive management will work and where the state will find funding for additional cost sharing. If elected Governor, what will you do to resolve these unknowns and to implement the intent of the new administrative rules?

Barrett:

Our communities have made great strides in cleaning up pollution since the days when our rivers foamed from raw wastewater discharges. The new rules will set in motion the most cost-effective investments for each watershed based on whether its problems are point or nonpoint pollution. The unknowns will be resolved with use of sound science and data.

In my administration, DNR and DATCP will work closely together with farmers, and with local government and industry in partnership to carry out the rules. If the national economic picture and state revenues allow, I will explore increases in environmental bonding so that the state can support local government investments in pollution control infrastructure and best management practices to clean up water pollution problems.

James:

The candidate did not respond.

Langer:

The candidate did not respond.

Walker:

The candidate did not respond.

Question 4:

In many quarters, aquatic invasive species (AIS) is an ever-growing problem for Wisconsin. The principal sources of these invasives are the Great Lakes and theMississippi River. There is a growing consensus that to prevent and ultimately halt invasives they must be stopped at the source — our border waters. Do you agree with this emerging consensus? As Governor, would you favor a Great Lakes multi-state cooperative effort to control invasives? Furthermore, as Governor, where would funding to control and prevent current and new invasive species rank in your list of budget priorities?

Barrett:

I strongly support halting invasives before they reach our waters. It’s the only way we can realistically afford to combat invasives. I support sealing theChicagoShip Canal and the other channels in Chicago that connect the Mississippi to Lake Michigan to keep Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan. A multi-state cooperative effort is essential. We must work hard to find other ways to move goods through Chicago.

Budgets will be tight --- but I know that ignoring invasives will cost a lot more in the long run.

James:

The candidate did not respond.

Langer:

The candidate did not respond.

Walker:

The candidate did not respond.

Question 5:

As Governor, what would be your position be regarding the structure, management, and mission of the Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources? In particular, what would your position be on the often suggested separation of the WDNR into two divisions – a fishing and hunting division andnatural resources division? Would you favor or oppose reinstating the Public Intervenor to provide the citizens of Wisconsin with an additional voice in administration of the statutes and administrative rules governing Wisconsin's natural resources? Finally, what initiatives will you suggest for increasing the revenue available to the WDNR to enhance protective legislation for natural resources and provide effective enforcement of the current laws?

Barrett:

Separation of DNR into two agencies would greatly increase the overall cost ofmanaging natural resources. As John Muir said, "everything is linked to everything else." Good fishing depends on good water quality; good hunting depends on good habitat. Regarding revenue, belt tightening will still be necessary while we weather global economic storm – not permanent cuts to DNR. I support the concept of a Public Intervenor.

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Scott Walker's small, stale & caustic agenda

James Rowen's Bio

James Rowen, a writer and consultant, has worked for newspapers, and as the senior Mayoral staffer, in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007. Posts run also at various news sites, including The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Purple Wisconsin."